City Council

CITY COUNCIL VIRTUAL MEETING Regular Meeting April 28, 2020 The ninety-fourth meeting of the City Council of Charleston was held this date convening at 5:02 p.m. over video conference call. A notice of this meeting and an agenda were made available on the City’s website April 23, 2020 and appeared in the Post and Courier on April 27, 2020. PRESENT (13) The Honorable John J. Tecklenburg, Mayor Councilmember Delcioppo District 1 Councilmember Waring District 7 Councilmember Shealy District 2 Councilmember Seekings District 8 Councilmember Sakran District 3 Councilmember Shahid District 9 Councilmember Mitchell District 4 Councilmember Griffin District 10 Councilmember Brady District 5 Councilmember Appel District 11 Councilmember Gregorie District 6 Councilmember Jackson District 12 Mayor Tecklenburg called the meeting to order at 5:02 p.m. The Clerk called the roll. Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Now if you would like to join us, Councilmember Shahid will lead us in a prayer, and over my right shoulder back there is Old Glory stationed for us to give the Pledge of Allegiance.” Councilmember Shahid opened the meeting with an invocation. Councilmember Shahid then led City Council in the Pledge of Allegiance. Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Thank you all very much. Next is the approval of our City Council minutes for April 14th.” Councilwoman Jackson said, “Move for approval, Mayor.” Councilmember Mitchell said, “Second.” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “We have a motion to approve and a second. Are there any additions or deletions?” No one asked to speak.  City Council April 28, 2020 Page 2 On a motion of Councilwoman Jackson, seconded by Councilmember Mitchell, City Council voted unanimously to approve the minutes of the April 14, 2020 City Council meeting. Mayor Tecklenburg said, “The minutes are approved. I didn’t have any special announcements. Notably, I did not have to share how to exit the building in the event of an unforeseen evacuation of the building. So, I guess everybody’s got their own exit in mind in case if it happens.” There was laughter. Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Next is our Citizen’s Participation Period, and I think I’m going to call on Tracy McKee to give us an update on that, or is Jennifer going to do that?” Tracy McKee said, “I think Jennifer and Vanessa already have what they need to go through the Citizen’s Participation, but I‘m happy to share my screen if we need to.” The Clerk said, “Okay. Well, I have some information. I didn’t know if you were doing something in addition. So, we received I think it was 48 requests. Forty-four of the conversations that we received dealt with requesting an extension of the 60-day comment period, and I think you are all familiar with that. Then, we had three others that have sent a request, and it was a request to re-open the parks and tennis courts. There was one additional request for City Council, and this was from a person at the College of Charleston who is concerned about vehicles being parked on the sidewalk on the College of Charleston campus. He also said that it is a safety hazard and wants someone to look into that. That’s basically the ones that we have without individually calling out the same ones that were all asking for an additional 60-day comment period.” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Thank you. So, if I may, I would like to just, I know it’s part of our Committee Report from Public Works to talk about the Army Corps of Engineers project, but since I have a little news for you all, and the vast majority of our comments were about that extension, if you don’t mind, I’ll just go ahead and share that with you now. Is that okay?” Councilmember Waring said, “Sure.” The Clerk said, “Mayor, we also sent it to City Council, so they will have copies, not necessarily with them, that they can peruse through within the next few days.” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Yes, and I read those this afternoon. So, as we discussed the other day at our weekday meeting, I think it was Friday, about requesting an extension for this comment period, I think I shared with you all that I had basically requested an extension even before they released the plan because I felt like we needed a little more time. This is such an important and long lasting project for our City. It’s really critical that we all have the time to digest it and have the ability. So, the Army Corps Colonel Rachel Honderd got back to me this afternoon with very good news, and it surprised me a little bit. It’s even better than I expected because I thought that she would just give us a longer period, but what she offered us, which again I think is great, it’s to in essence have a second comment period that would not occur until the first part of next year, 2021. So, we’re currently under this 60-day comment period now, correct, and that would run its course, and we’re going to urge everyone to make comments, dig into the plan, and all like that, but then we’ll have a whole other six months to do our own active engagement. We’ll be able to have community meetings, neighborhood meetings once this distancing is relaxed a  City Council April 28, 2020 Page 3 little bit, and then have another period after the beginning of 2021 that additional comments can be made for a 30-day period that they will open it up. So, we’ll literally be able to save comments throughout the balance of 2020 and all kinds of engagement and then load them up, if you will, put them in, and the comment period re-opens at the first part of next year. So, it’s a lot more than saying they’re extending from 60 to 90 days. It really almost gives us a ten-month period in which to engage the public, to get comments, and be able to enter them into the process. So, I don’t know about you all, but I thought that was a very creative out of the box offer from the Corps of Engineers. They’re really working with us, and I think that’s a great solution.” Councilmember Waring said, “Mr. Mayor, I have to agree with you, and I think that’s wonderful. Did you discuss when at the turn of the year will it be then, a 30-day period or a 60- day period, or what would it be?” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “It will be a 30-day period sometime after the first of the year, and she is not specifying what day it starts on, but I presume in the first quarter of next year.” Councilmember Waring said, “Well, thank you for working on that because we had a discussion on that during our Public Works Committee, and I think all of us agreed that 60 days was too short. I think that is a wonderful solution.” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Yes.” Councilmember Mitchell said, “Yes, Mr. Mayor, Councilmember Mitchell. I’m happy to hear that because I had a lot of calls from the people in my district, especially the Rosemont area and where Bridgeview is located. They are terrified that it’s not coming in their areas, so my phone was ringing off the hook dealing with it. So, I believe this would give us more time to look at it and really make this decision. The Corps of Engineers could look at it very seriously because they feel that they are being left out, insofar as those areas which are probably low income areas or areas that people, in African American areas, feel that they are being left out. So, I’m glad that they are extending this so they can have more time to hear what’s going on and to learn what’s going on and to get their input.” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Absolutely. We’ll have time to have individual neighborhood meetings out there.” Councilmember Mitchell said, “Correct.” Mayor Tecklenburg recognized Councilwoman Jackson, followed by Councilmember Shahid. Councilwoman Jackson said, “Yes, I just wanted to thank you very much. I do appreciate you helping the Corps come to this, I guess this untraditional decision for extending or having a different way of engaging the public comment. So, thanks for the work that you put into that, Mayor. I’m just wondering, are we going to try and schedule an official Council work session during the 60 days, or what is your plan for bringing us together so we can start to hear sort of the same information in the same room or same Zoom if it has to be that way, and get started working together as a decision making body?” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Well, at the pleasure of Council, we can have our own workshop meeting on this. I do want us particularly with this extra time, but I would like to have a robust delving into this project during the 60-day comment period. I think it would be helpful to the Corps  City Council April 28, 2020 Page 4 if prior to the end of the 60 days that we get as many people to go ahead and dig into it, give their comments, even if they’re considered initial comments. I don’t want this to be a situation where folks read this, ‘Oh, I’ll just wait until next year to make my comment.’ It will really be helpful to the Corps if we can go ahead to the best of our ability to make comments during the first 60 days. So, yes, we’ll urge people to do that. As soon as we get to where we can have physical meetings again, we’ll do it. I’m glad to schedule a separate workshop for Council to go have Mr. Wilbert make an entire presentation, and I did want to add about their offer that they’ve never done this before in Corps history for any other community. I think it’s way beyond the fact that we’re in the midst of Coronavirus. I think it’s also a realization of how important, impactful this project is to this community. So, I’m really thankful again to them for stepping out and doing this.” Mayor Tecklenburg recognized Councilmember Shahid. Councilmember Shahid said, “Mayor, I was going to pick up on what you just commented on. I think the danger, like all things that we as human beings see an opportunity to respond and comment for a second opportunity in 2021, and we can relax, and that is the exact opposite of what we need to be doing. We need to make sure that we engage our community, get these comments in, engage with one another as to what we should be doing with this project, and then build on that in 2021. So, I appreciate your comments and your effort in getting at this second bite of the apple, so to speak, for next year, as well. I just don’t want us to relax on not doing anything at all during this 60-day period. Thank you.” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Absolutely. That’s really important you all.” Councilwoman Jackson said, “Mr. Mayor, just one quick thing.” Mayor Tecklenburg recognized Councilmember Appel. Councilwoman Jackson said, “Okay.” Councilmember Appel said, “Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and, again, kudos to you for working with the Army Corps to secure this additional public comment concession. I know that the Federal and State Governments’ regulatory procedures can sometimes be pretty difficult to contend with. So, I can’t stress enough how happy we should all be to have this additional opportunity, and I thought I might just add that perhaps the focus could be over the next 60 days trying to tackle some of the bigger picture issues here, some of the broader brush policy issues that this project presents. I don’t think we’re at the point now of getting into the weeds on engineering and some of the more technical archaean aspects of a project of this magnitude, but I do think that the community is in a position now to begin that more broad brush policy discussion because of this, really, I spent some time over the weekend looking at the report. It is a major undertaking, a lot of implications, and I think that that could be perhaps a focus of our time over the next 60 days to just be talking about this price tag, talking about this concept, talking about how we want to address some of these issues at a 10,000 foot level. I think that could be a good way to do it. Thank you.” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Thank you.” Mayor Tecklenburg recognized Councilwoman Jackson. Councilwoman Jackson said, “I had a very similar thought I just wanted to put on the record during this discussion. Thank you for initiating it, Mayor. I know that the conversations that I have  City Council April 28, 2020 Page 5 had at length with people since the report came out, my encouragement, is that really, we’ve got the perfect timing in terms of looking at this with an overview as you are saying because we’re about to start our Comp Plan. So, I know we’re going to have a report on that, an update on that, from Mr. Lindsey in a second, and it just seems like those two things can dovetail so perfectly that we’re not going to compartmentalize. We’re going to incorporate these serious decisions that we have to make, the Army Corps report, at the same time as we’re making an even more serious decision of how we want to support our vision and our community over the next ten years, so it seems like it all just sort of comes together.” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “So, if we could move forward to Petitions and Communications, we are very blessed to have with us this evening Dr. Katy Richardson with the Department of Health and Environmental Control. We’ve been giving Council and the public an update on a very regular basis on our response to COVID-19. Often times at the beginning of each one of those reports, we’ll give you all of the numbers, but we all see the numbers in the press and on the news media every day. Dr. Richardson agreed to come and share with us what DHEC is up to and maybe give some meaning behind those numbers and a little more interpretation. So, without further ado, I’d like to call on Dr. Richardson to address Council. Thank you for being with us.” Dr. Katy Richardson said, “Sure. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for having me. Can you hear me, fine?” Several Councilmembers said, “Yes.” Dr. Richardson said, “Okay, wonderful. I want to thank the Mayor for having me, and I’d like to share a brief update on what we’re doing as a state in response to COVID-19. I’ll share my screen now, hopefully. Okay, can everyone see it?” Several Councilmembers said, “Yes.” Dr. Richardson said, “Wonderful. He’s amazing. So, this is the agenda, what I hope to cover, and I promise not to talk about too many numbers, but the numbers for today just came in, and as of today, we’re reporting a total of 5,735 people who have tested positive for COVID-19. These are the numbers as of yesterday, but today’s were just reported. Unfortunately, that includes 192 deaths statewide. In Charleston County, we have 438 cases now and seven deaths in total. Obviously, it’s very important to remember no one is immune to this disease, and there is currently no vaccine. We know that this is a very serious and rapidly evolving public health event. We’ve had an average of 149 new infections statewide per day. That is down slightly from 180 new infections per day. The Governor, as we all know, ordered the Stay Home or Work Order on April 6th, and current data just shows that social distancing and staying home to help combat the spread of disease has saved lives and been vital to what we are trying to accomplish. We’re calling on everyone to stay home, and this is especially important for those with health conditions such as diabetes and heart disease. We have been fortunate to avoid some of the problems that more heavily impacted areas have seen, which has really stressed our health care systems, including hospitalization rates, ventilator availability, and the need to prioritize resources. However, the elderly, as well as African Americans in our state, and others have continued to be disproportionately impacted unfortunately by this disease.” Councilmember Gregorie said, “Dr. Richardson.” Dr. Richardson said, “Yes.”  City Council April 28, 2020 Page 6 Councilmember Gregorie said, “This is Councilmember Gregorie, and maybe that comes up on this screen. Because of those concentrations, are we doing anything different to make sure that we go where the low income and minority concentrations are?” Dr. Richardson said, “Good question. If you will allow me to continue, I am going to talk some about that, but please bring it up again if I don’t sufficiently address your question later in the presentation.” Councilmember Gregorie said, “Thank you.” Dr. Richardson said, “Okay, wonderful. So, 87 percent of those with COVID-19 who have died in our State have been age 61 or over. On the left, we see reported cases, and then the second bar graph looks at deaths. So, we see that those who have been tested are much more of the bell curve that we often see, but the death is more to the right, which means our older population. Moving over to the pie charts, African Americans make up about 27 percent of South Carolina’s population, but showing the huge disparities here with race. They comprise 43 percent of COVID-19 cases statewide and 56 percent of related deaths. We believe that this is in part, at least, because African Americans are disproportionately affected by conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, asthma, and obesity. People with such conditions are at higher risk for severe illness from COVID-19. We recognize the critical need to address these inequities to reach the communities at higher risk. We are collaborating with our State and local partners, including local churches and the Housing Authorities, the State Office for Minority Affairs, and the Office on Aging as well as so many more, and while we’re working to enhance our outreach efforts, we do need to do more. We’re exploring new ways to reach high risk groups, including working to form more partnerships to help express how conditions such as diabetes, asthma, and obesity exacerbate COVID-19 symptoms. Here we’ve all heard that projections may suggest that the curve has begun to level, however, many people who are affected or continued, we continue to see those affected, and we are concerned that currently we’re not testing enough to be able to interpret these projections possibly, but we do want to make sure that we are looking at these projections and being cautious about what they show. What we see here and what is important to remember is that even as we work to flatten the curve, people will continue to be infected, positive cases will continue to be reported, and, unfortunately, death will continue to occur. So what this bar graph shows is the cumulative daily total in red, and the number of cases reported daily in the blue bar graphs. So, we do see that our absolute peak was around the 8th of April, but then again around the 15th of April, we had a peak that was nearly the same, and since then, we have seen what I consider a plateau. We did have the one day that the cases were lower, but generally, we like to look at about a week at a time, and so, I would suggest that that is a plateau after that second peak in looking at this graph. So, these are some of the response activities that DHEC has been conducting. We continued to conduct investigations of suspect and confirmed cases. We are working with partners across the spectrum to communicate prevention messaging. Thankfully, our WIC services are now 100 percent mobile over-the-phone, and we have over 4,000 new WIC users since that has happened. We’ve expanded options in a variety of food categories to address WIC product shortages. We’re working on increasing availability of our public health data, providing sneeze guards, and increasing testing capacity in rural areas and at-risk communities. Finally, on a regular basis, we release health alerts for our medical community to be able to interpret the CDC guidance that comes with us to our particular state and population.  City Council April 28, 2020 Page 7 Interestingly, surveys show that the vast majority of Americans do support strict shelter- in-place policies. They are intended to limit the spread of disease. Eighty percent of those surveyed by the Kaiser Family Foundation said that they could shelter in place for at least another month. We know we’ve asked South Carolinians to make great sacrifices through social distancing, closures, and other methods to reduce the spread of COVID-19, and I know many are waiting for a time that we can fully loosen restrictions. This is the beginning of a framework put out by the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials that provides a public health framework for safely re-opening. You can read all of the different sort of protections that will be put in place with DHEC, the Governor, and counties and municipalities across our State to ensure that as we do gradually re-open, we are protecting our communities and the public as much as possible. This includes the health and safety of workers in critical industries, definitely, those living and working in high-risk facilities such as our senior care facilities and on detention facilities, and mass transit. We will be monitoring and immediately responding to increases in transmission rates and certainly continuing to talk about social distancing and the need for face coverings, as well as protecting employees and the public in essential businesses and private services, particularly our first responders. Here, this continues in the framework and trying to sort of put in place metrics for what we will need to put together and accomplish in order to keep the public safe. We need to be addressing those experiencing homelessness, as well as racial and ethnic minorities, and I know that the City of Charleston is really at the forefront of prioritizing those with housing insecurities, and we appreciate their partnership in this at all times, but particularly during this COVID-19 crisis. We will need to protect those working in non-essential businesses and public services and other congregate settings and then in Charleston, in particular, the hospitality and tourism industry. So, these are some of the guidelines for opening up America again, and as we look at this and think about sort of a timeline which I know everyone would like, we continue to say that there is no set timeline that we can give. The data will drive the timeline, but when the time comes, and more restrictions are relaxed, it will remain critical that everyone continues to take steps to stop the spread of disease. Steps to stop the spread of the disease and flatten the curve include the things that we have been saying, and you have been saying with us from the beginning, including practicing social distancing which means remaining six feet apart, no crowds or large events, wearing your mask while out in public, and that means a cloth face covering, disinfecting frequently-touched items often, regularly washing your hands, and monitoring for symptoms and staying home when sick or when you’re in contact with someone who is sick. Once the rate of infection is assuredly low, we need to then take the steps nearly every single plan recommends to move forward. We need to ramp up the testing infrastructure to acceptable levels, we need to create the public health workforce, to conduct isolation and contact tracing, more plans for monitoring locations to know when we need to get more restrictive should things go wrong. We want to see testing be broadly available in the community for people who have symptoms. We currently have the testing capacity between our public health lab and our health care facilities, which have also ramped up their ability to run these COVID-19 tests, but more people do need to be tested. We will know that this is happening when we see a downward trajectory of positive tests as a percentage of total tests over a 14-day period. Right now, we see about a ten to eleven percent positivity rate, so for every ten people tested, one of those is positive, and we want that rate to fall considerably from there which will be showing that we are able to test those with mild symptoms such that we better diagnose and then can isolate and contact trace to further decrease infections. This expanded access to testing must be paired with access to information and personal protective equipment for essential workers.  City Council April 28, 2020 Page 8 So, I want to end by just again saying thank you for having me. I did want to briefly address the antibody testing because I did talk a lot about testing, and at this point in time, DHEC, as well as the CDC, continue to believe that the antibody testing is not at a place that it can be used to make individual decisions. It’s not at a place where a positive test for sure means that someone is immune or that that person could return to work, and we are fearful that false positives and false negatives may lead to poor decision making about personal protective equipment masks or sort of decreasing social distancing. Then, if there are other questions, I am happy to take them at this time, and I will see if I can stop sharing my screen at the moment. So, anything I can answer for anyone?” Councilmember Gregorie said, “Yes, can I go back to my first question?” Dr. Richardson said, “Absolutely. Can you ask the question again?” Councilmember Gregorie said, “Okay. You did answer partly to collaboration with churches and other organizations with regard to vulnerable populations. My question then is, what is the result of that collaboration? Did that collaboration result in more testing in those vulnerable areas? Just one question, I had several questions?” Dr. Richardson said, “Yes, one at a time would be great. Thank you. So, I cannot answer the question of whether it’s already resulted in increased testing. I know that it has resulted in collaborations which are soon to be on the forefront. They are soon to be available. Those include mobile testing options that, I understand, are in development in Charleston County and in other parts of the State. It includes working with our Federally qualified health care organizations including Fetter Health Care here in the Charleston area who already have done an amazing job with increasing testing, particularly in Berkeley County, as well as at their Nassau Street location. So, they’ve really been at the forefront of the testing and procedures that I know about that have occurred, and I guess what we’ll do is we’ll continue to watch the demographics to see sort of who gets tested and the zip code data that comes out as far as where the positives are. I guess then, we’ll have to sort of think about how best to be able to measure that because we don’t really break down the number of tests. We do get information on positive and negative tests done across the State, but I don’t think we produce any reports at this point that say where those tests are done. I think that’s sort of just a one Statewide number at this point in time.” Councilmember Gregorie said, “My concern is, if we’re not doing testing in those areas, are we relying on herding?” Dr. Richardson said, “What do you mean ‘herding’?” Councilmember Gregorie said, “Herding is when there is an infectious disease--” Dr. Richardson said, “Oh, herd immunity.” Councilmember Gregorie said, “Yes.” Dr. Richardson said, “No, we are definitely not relying on herd immunity in South Carolina. Fortunately, I think we have done a good job of flattening the curve, although we don’t have these sort of prevalent studies that have been done in the State of Washington and in New York City yet. We suspect that the problems in South Carolina are actually going to be quite low which means that the vast majority of South Carolinians, we believe, are still vulnerable to the infection. So, we absolutely must increase testing across South Carolina, particularly in rural areas and, particularly, in African American communities. That was one of those metrics I was talking about, that we want to see the number of positive tests decrease which will show that we’re actually testing more people before they’re more severely ill or have symptoms that may cause them to need to be hospitalized or have more severe consequences.”  City Council April 28, 2020 Page 9 Councilmember Gregorie said, “Thank you.” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Alright. Are there any other questions for Dr. Richardson?” Councilmember Appel said, “Mayor, I just had a quick question. Dr. Richardson, I really appreciate that presentation. It’s great to be able to hear from an expert on these issues. We come from a variety of different backgrounds. I’m certainly not a medical doctor, Epidemiologist, anything to that nature. I wanted to ask you about a certain theme that sort of emerged in discourse, nationally, about this issue. There is beginning to be an opinion out there that, advanced by some medical professionals, essentially, this is much more like the flu and sort of the issues that we experienced with that on an annual basis than previously anticipated in the early days of this. Now that a bunch of data has come in both from around the country and around the world, it appears this is still a minority position actually. This certainly is not what Dr. Fauci is talking about or Dr. Birx is talking about, but I wanted just to kind of get your take on this. Now that some data has come in, where does this stand in your opinion?” Dr. Richardson said, “I heard that, as well. Thanks for bringing it up. I do think that there are aspects of COVID-19 that are similar to the flu. We’re certainly concerned that one of those aspects may be there is some seasonality and that we may actually see a worsening of rates of infection in the fall and winter. We don’t know because it just hasn’t been around that long. As far as case fatality rates or the number of people who died per number of infections, again, I think we need to increase testing to know that for sure because right now our case fatality rate in Charleston County, which was answered the first or second slide, I think was around 1.6 percent. The regular seasonal flu is about .1 percent. So, that’s about 16 times higher than a usual year of the seasonal flu. That being said, if we were to test everyone right now, that’s the key part, how many people have we missed? We need to be testing more to figure that out. I personally don’t think that it would be enough to drop that case fatality number down to what a seasonal flu year would be. In addition, we certainly see different people becoming ill from COVID-19 than the seasonal flu. So, in that respect, although the elderly are also certainly really affected by flu season, we are also seeing more young adults having severe sequelae of this than what I can see as the seasonal flu, especially the strokes that we’ve seen in some in their 30’s and 40’s, but those who are younger with the co-morbidity. I think this has been worse for, obviously it’s been not as severe for kids. So, I do think in some cases that it’s like the seasonal flu, but I don’t think, even with widespread testing we will see that this will be of a much higher magnitude of severe sequelae and deaths than the seasonal flu, but time will tell.” Councilmember Appel said, “Thank you so much.” Dr. Richardson said, “Sure.” Mayor Tecklenburg recognized Councilmember Waring. Councilmember Waring said, “Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you also, Dr. Richardson, for giving all of this valued information. Obviously, testing resonated in your talk. Do we have any feel for where the funding is going to come to be able to implement the level of testing that you indicated is needed? In particular, would that come to local governments that would assist in that effort?” Dr. Richardson said, “That’s not my area of expertise, where the funding comes from, but I do certainly believe that local governments, as well as community leaders and community partners, will need to be vital participants in this. Right now, DHEC doesn’t do any of the actual testing, the swabbing. We run many of the tests in our public health lab, but we will depend on partners. We’ve already seen some money come from the Federal government, some money coming from State governments. We’ve seen regulations where insurance companies are going to be paying for COVID-19 testing. So, we’re supporting the federally qualified health centers, as  City Council April 28, 2020 Page 10 I said, with supplies. Then, we’ll also run those tests in our public health lab. So, I think funding will come from a variety of sources, but it must happen. We’ll have to continue to look for the funding necessary to make it happen on a widespread scale.” Councilmember Waring said, “Thank you, ma’am.” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Alright. I would add that the $1.9 billion that the State received from the last CARES Act is specifically for COVID-19 related expenses. Testing, obviously, is related, so there is no question that the Governor has some financial resources that have been given to him to do more testing.” Mayor Tecklenburg recognized Councilmember Seekings. Councilmember Seekings said, “Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and, Katy, thank you so much for coming and spending some time with us.” Dr. Richardson said, “Of course.” Councilmember Seekings continued, “Katy is a regular attendee at our Health and Wellness Committee. We always get to hear all sorts of great stuff from her, and I really appreciate it. I have a question. I heard you, I think, say on the antibody testing side of things that there has been some false negatives. It’s not as reliable as you might like. As we’re devising a strategy to get out on the fact side of this, what testing is going to be the testing we’re looking at? If antibody testing is not reliable for testing people for the disease, where is that sort of gap filler between disease testing and antibody testing, so we know we’re in the place where we can start opening things back up again?” Dr. Richardson said, “Well, I hope antibody testing will improve. I think there is already the next generation of antibody tests that are being developed right now that will be able to better correlate positive IGG, which is the long term antibody with immunity. Then, more time will also help to tell us how long that immunity may last if people are indeed immune with the antibody. So, I do believe there will be a recall for antibody testing. I just don’t think the CDC believes that we are there yet, that our current antibody test helps with surveillance. That’s what’s happening in New York City, in the State of Washington, and we certainly hope that that will come to South Carolina, too, and we’ll use that. We’re very appreciative of what MUSC is doing right now. They’re doing studies looking at a high risk group in their hospital, those that have been working in the emergency departments and the COVID wards, and comparing them to lower risk employees. So, we will learn from all of these studies, and I do believe, I hope, that there will be a role for antibody testing, but I just don’t think we’re there yet.” Councilmember Gregorie said, “Dr. Richardson.” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “It will probably be a culmination.” Mayor Tecklenburg recognized Councilmember Gregorie. Councilmember Gregorie said, “Yes. Did you mention the rate of infection for the State?” Dr. Richardson said, “Well, I know that the rate, I don’t have the exact number in front of me but--” Councilmember Gregorie said, “Is that the R0?” Dr. Richardson said, “It may have been on the slide, I think. For Charleston County, it’s about 105 per 100,000 population, so that’s the rate for Charleston County. That’s, I think, about 19th now in the State. I’m pulling that off the top of my head, so I might be wrong. We started off having a much higher rate. We were sort of third, and then we dropped to ninth, and now thankfully we’re at 19, so we’re almost sort of in the midway there. Certainly, our case fatality  City Council April 28, 2020 Page 11 rate is lower than the State as a whole. I think that says a lot about our health care facilities here and the health care that people receive in our community. Did someone ask about the R0 also?” Councilmember Gregorie said, “Yes, I did.” Dr. Richardson said, “Okay. So, the R0, I’m not sure that we have a good gauge of that for South Carolina right now. I haven’t seen that. Basically, the R0 is how many people will a positive person infect. So, that’s what that means, and we believe that it’s likely higher than the seasonal flu but, again, without sort of widespread testing, it’s a little bit difficult to get that number. We know that there are some super spreader events, and that’s one of the reasons that the large gatherings are such a risk right now. So, one person could be at a large family gathering, for instance, who may be infectious and many of those at that event may then become symptomatic and be diagnosed. So, for some of those events, the R0 is very large. What we need to do to begin on the downward side of the curve is really to get that R0 below one or to have each positive person infect less than one other person. I do not think that we are there yet, but that is sort of what we believe when we see a flattening and then a downward part of the curve, as far as daily cases.” Councilmember Gregorie said, “Dr. Richardson, I appreciate it. Thank you.” Dr. Richardson said, “Of course.” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Thank you.” Mayor Tecklenburg recognized Councilmember Shealy. Councilmember Shealy said, “Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate that and, Dr. Richardson, thank you very much for being here and serving on our Health and Wellness Committee, as well. I don’t think any of us imagined that any of this was going to happen when we developed that Committee, but that has an incredible amount of expertise from the Citadel, the College of Charleston, from MUSC, from Roper, from Charleston County Schools, and it’s a great Committee and, I think, it’s helped us a lot. I just wanted to ask you, I know that a couple of weeks ago DHEC had put out kind of a prediction of cases starting to come down. I think last week was supposed to be, I think it was 958, but the cases ended up, I think, for this past week at 1,041. I heard you say kind of leveling out, but does that change the thinking of it going down? I think the scale had said maybe 100 cases a week after this week or something like that.” Dr. Richardson said, “Right. Yes. So, you’re talking about Dr. Eric Brenner’s projection, and that is still on our website. He is a long term epidemiologist with the World Health Organization, as well as with the CDC and DHEC. We’ve been lucky to have him assist us with some of those numbers. We also look at the University of Washington, and they do projections about how many total deaths we may have by the beginning of August. We do believe that we’re starting to decrease. We don’t feel like that we’re, hopefully, at this point on an increase, but we’re really hoping that we have sort of all of the pieces in place to protect our communities, especially those who are most vulnerable, when we do open up again. So, I would say for Dr. Brenner’s projections, I don’t think they have changed from those numbers that you’re talking about. I don’t know if he’s actually re-done them. They will be posted when he does, but I do know that the University of Washington’s projections do continue to say that they believe we’ve hit our peak deaths, but that is with the caveat that we continue our sort of stay at home order through the end of May. So, if that doesn’t hold true, I think now they’re actually saying the middle of June, and they are increasing their estimate of the total number of deaths for South Carolina. It’s jumped around a little, but it was in sort of the mid-250’s, and now it’s up to around 360. So, they do continue to look at the data and adjust their projections based on what’s happening in the recent weeks.”  City Council April 28, 2020 Page 12 Councilmember Shealy said, “Thank you very much.” Dr. Richardson said, “Sure.” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Is there anyone else?” No one else asked to speak. Mayor Tecklenburg said, “So, thank you, Dr. Richardson, for that update. It’s been mentioned twice already, but thank you for your service on our own City of Charleston Wellness Committee. You’re a great asset to our community. Let us know anything else we could do to help you along, as well.” Dr. Richardson said, “Likewise, and thank you for having me.” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Thank you. Alright. So, next, I do want to call on Jacob Lindsey to give us a brief update on our Comprehensive Plan. Jacob, are you out there?” Jacob Lindsey, Planning, Director, said, “Thank you, Mr. Mayor and members of Council. How are you all doing today?” Councilmember Sakran said, “Good.” Mr. Lindsey said, “Very good. I wanted to just give you a brief update in regards to our Comprehensive Plan. I’m going to attempt to do a screen share here, so we’ll see if I can bring this up. I believe that you all should be seeing my screen right now.” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “We can see it.” Mr. Lindsey said, “Very good. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, the first thing, as you all know, is that we are in a Comprehensive Plan year. The Comprehensive Plan is the guiding document for the City’s growth, and every ten years it has to be updated by State law. We are currently in the process of doing that. We plan for hurricanes. We plan for all kinds of things, even for pandemics, surprisingly, that was one of the things that we had planned for, but we still have to deliver the Comprehensive Plans during this year. We are operating under our deadline, which is February 2021, by State law, although we would like to deliver a draft plan by the end of this calendar year. We’ve been working tirelessly behind the scenes to help create a new condition adjusting for the Coronavirus, social distancing, that is still going to allow us to deliver this plan on time. Now, this slide, this timeline, in brief, shows the tasks that we had originally laid out for you. This is the presentation that I gave to you on March 9th, and this was our original projections to when we would do these things. Then, this shows our current timing based on current conditions under the Coronavirus social distancing. So, obviously, we are going with our pre- planning work. We have begun to kick off for these plans, but our community partner input, which is all of the work with your constituents, with all of our community partners, such as the Medical University, the institutions, neighborhood organizations, as well as what we had hoped to call our Civic Labs, which is going to be a really great public engagement exercise with experts and comprehensive planning. We are not able to do those things now because they are in-person exercises. Now, we can definitely shift some of them virtually, but in-person public meetings are the best way to have these conversations. So, we are currently hoping to shift these until late July and August based on what we currently know about the time that we might be most able to have in-person meetings. They may be under social distancing guidelines. We may be having in-person meetings with everyone six feet apart wearing personal protective equipment, but for now we are going to move these public events out into Quarter 3, July, August, and early September when we think we might have the best chance to actually gather together. We are still going to be working on drafting the plan, finalizing it towards the end of the year, and head towards an approval under our State deadline. Now, we’re lucky here because I have the privilege  City Council April 28, 2020 Page 13 of working with an incredibly experienced staff of people who have done this before and who are really true professionals in planning. We also have a great set of consultants that we had selected with the help of many of you who have sat on our Consultant Selection Committees. Thank you for doing that, for the Councilmembers who participated in those. So, we have great staff. We have great consultants. There is plenty of expertise to help us deliver this, but at the end of the day, we have to have in-person public engagement to help give us direction about the future of our City. To shift to this next slide here, this is our new plan. Currently, we are hoping to hire our consultants, and these will be coming to you at your next Council meeting in May. I want to begin with the most important of all of these consultants, which is the consultant that’s helping us with climate change, flooding, and how we address issues related to water, and that is our top level concern. Secondly, we are focusing on issues of housing affordability, and hopefully, we can go ahead and hire these consultants and begin the process of analyzing our conditions and get them to work. So, that’s going to come to you at your next Council meeting. We’re also hoping to launch our online input. Now, this is on schedule with what we were anticipating even before the virus hit. We want to make sure that we have online input where people can log on, they can engage our surveys, and give us information on the Comprehensive Plan for the course of the rest of the year, and that’s on schedule with our original plan. In July through September, assuming that we can meet even under social distancing, we want to begin our public engagement. Then, in the fall, we want to draft our plan and have an Open House. Now, in person, we want to have what we call the ‘Learning Tour’, which is public meetings with each of you. We’ve talked before about setting up meetings in your districts, and if we are able to do those things safely and under social distancing guidelines in the high summer, early fall, we will be working with each of you to do that and, of course, we’ll be launching our online survey. Then, separately, both online and in person, we want to have our Civic Labs, which are going to be a series of interactive discussions with experts from housing, from transportation, and matters of climate change and flooding. Those things again will occur later in the summer, so we have pushed these activities off until we think we can actually have them safely. Now, with that said, down at the bottom, this is our goal right now. We want to meet our State deadline for delivering a Comprehensive Plan by February of 2021. However, we anticipate readjusting our schedule as needed. If we get into the summer, and it turns out it’s not possible for us to safely meet, to have large meetings with your constituents, and to engage all of the people that we need to talk to when we craft this plan, then we’re going to push things back. We are not going to bring forward a Comprehensive Plan until it has robust input from all of the citizens in the City who want to participate, and for us, for Charleston to some degree, that means meeting in person. Now, if we do get to that point where we’re in the middle of the summer or the fall, and we’re still not able to safely meet, we’re going to come back to you and continue to update you. If we need to push back our deadline, we’ll consider that at that point, but for now we’re going to continue to aim at doing the great work that we are able to do, hiring our consultants and getting them to work, and pushing our public engagement back into the middle of the summer and the early fall when we think it might be safest for us to meet. So, that’s our current approach. This is a very short update, but I wanted to just let you all know that we are first of all hoping to do this great work we know is so important, but also thinking about how we do it safely heading into the summer season and the fall. So, with that, I’ll conclude this presentation and just say thank you to everyone who has participated in our consultant procurement meetings and that we will be bringing those to you at your next meeting in May. So, Mayor, I’ll hand it back to you.” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Great. Thank you, Jacob. Are there any questions for Mr. Lindsey?” No one asked to speak.  City Council April 28, 2020 Page 14 Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Okay. I don’t see any, so we’ll keep moving along. Thank you for that report.” Councilmember Shahid said, “Good job, Jacob.” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “So, next is our Committee Reports. First up is Committee on Human Resources, Councilwoman Jackson.” Councilwoman Jackson said, “Yes, thank you. We essentially had our kick-off meeting of Human Resources. New Councilmembers now make up the Human Resources Committee, and we realize that we’re all brand new to this opportunity to support our Human Resources Department and the great staff that they’re established to provide services and benefits for, primarily. So, we really appreciated the fact that we were asking for as much of a COVID-19 update as we could ask for from our agency representatives. Director Kay Cross worked overtime, I’m sure, with a couple of her staff members, to really give us a comprehensive look at what the City is responsible to do during our period of at home and a combination of keeping our workers safe. I felt like I learned a ton. For example, I didn’t know that in the very first bill that the Federal government put forward, the Congress put forward, that was primarily to impact communities, people’s ability to get through the virus from a health and safety aspect, that there was essentially an unemployment insurance part of it that people can opt to stay home, if they have reasons, because they have children at home that don’t have any other health care options during this pandemic. They can use their leave if they choose to, but they don’t have to use their personal leave. They can opt to stay home, and the bill requires that they would be paid 60 percent of their full-time salary. So, we received information about a few of our staff members who are making that decision. With two people working full time, somebody has to be at home with the children, so I was very happy to know about that bill. I didn’t realize that had gone into effect almost right away, as soon as the pandemic was recognized by the administration. We went on from that kind of information, gathering or disseminating to our Councilmembers, to begin talking about the resolution that this Council put forward that we all agreed on. Then, the agreement for the resolution was to ask the Human Resources Committee to study and make some sort of recommendation about introducing a paid Family Life Leave benefit for employees. Again, I was very impressed, and I think we all appreciate the background work that Mrs. Cross and her staff had already been doing in response to our resolution. So, they’ve done a detailed study. We put forward a benefit for them to look at, a benefit that would be equal to the Federal government’s paid 12 weeks and said they worked with the 12-week as the extreme, the most that an employee could ask to be paid during a family life leave event, all the way down to two extra weeks, and categorize that by the overall cost, the demographics. We’re waiting to get that chart. They wanted to fine tune it a little bit before they circulated it out, but we saw it on our Zoom meeting as a shared document, and they’ve also done a lot of comparative study of 33 employers. We haven’t seen that list yet, but they talked us through some of the determinations that they’ve made and what other employers do for family life leave. So, I feel like we’ve got a great wealth of comparative information. The Commission on Women had also done as well their own comparative homework as well, so I forwarded that to our Committee members early this week. I feel like we’ve got a great baseline of being able to make some sort of recommendation or decision and bringing them back to the Council. We started out, as I think on the Women’s Commission, not really assuming that this would have to be a budget year decision because other communities have implemented it in the midst of a current budget, but I think out of respect for the way that our budget process is going to kick off this spring and go through the summer, that we will probably make a recommendation to the Council, and then it would be implemented after the 2021 budget. So, thank you very much for the opportunity. I want to make a public thank you and a statement of  City Council April 28, 2020 Page 15 gratitude to Kay Cross and her department for all of the background work they’ve worked hard on.” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Great. Thank you. So, that’s still a work in progress.” Councilwoman Jackson said, “Yes, sir. We didn’t take any votes or make any decisions about anything.” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Are there any questions regarding all of that from anyone?” No one asked to speak. Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Alright. Thank you for that report. There’s no action required by Council. Next up is our Committee on Public Safety, Councilmember Shahid.” Councilmember Shahid said, “Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The Public Safety Committee met yesterday afternoon. As you can see from your agenda, we had a very ambitious agenda to cover yesterday. Items 2(a),(b), and (c), I’m going to try and lump together. We received some information from Court Administration regarding pending cases, including DUI cases. Back in August of 2019, it was reported a total of 396 jury trial cases were pending, including 167 DUI cases. That number changed a little bit in November 2019 to 398 jury trials and 183 DUI’s. As of April of 2020, the number of pending jury trial requests is down to 195 and DUI cases 150. Beginning in January, once a week, the Municipal Judges are holding pre-trial conferences for week-long sessions. Of that, they have resolved a total of 196 cases, so the pre-trial conferences are working very well. They’re reducing the number of caseloads that they were experiencing in Municipal Court. As you know, the Municipal Court has kind of taken a hiatus handling only those cases that involve folks who are in detention and not handling anything else besides these kinds of an emergency-type matters. We extended the application process for Municipal Judges through the end of March. We received a total of 19 new applicants. Friday, the Committee is going to meet to sort through those 19 applicants to decide if we want to interview all of them, and come up with a schedule of how to handle these applicants and then make a recommendation to the Mayor for those positions. So, good news on that front. I asked the two Chiefs, Chief Curia and Chief Reynolds, to give us a state of report as to their particular departments. A lot of information was received from both of them. I’m going to try to reduce this as fast as I can to give you sort of a sense of where our departments are. I will tell you that we are very fortunate that both of our Chiefs are who we have during this pandemic crisis. They are working together hand-in-hand with all of this, and we should be very fortunate and very appreciative of their efforts. We received a report from Chief Curia first regarding the Fire Department. He reported that a total of 77 new recruits have been hired since July of 2018, and this is very critical. Our vacancy rate has dropped from 21 percent to 9.3 percent. Our call volume that they are responding to has been retooled just to address life threatening responses. He has also filled the leadership vacuum with Deputy and Assistant Chiefs, and he has been doubling down on the efforts regarding the accreditation for the Fire Department. The bad news, which I think we all are going to be facing and will be addressing this in our budgets, is facilities for the Fire Department. At some point in time, we’re going to lose Milford Street, and we need to find a replacement facility for that. He listed a bunch of stations that are either in need of repair or replacement, including Station #22 on Cainhoy, Station #23 on Johns Island, Station #10 West Ashley, Station #15 on Coming Street, Station #16 off of Ashley Hall Plantation Road, and Station #20 off of Pinefield Road. So, we’ve got some facility issues we’re going to need to be addressing sometime in the near future with our Fire Department.  City Council April 28, 2020 Page 16 Chief Reynolds gave us sort of the same report regarding his department. Of course, the highlight revolved around what we are doing with our Racial Bias Audit. He hired a Compliance Manager, Wendy Stiver, who, I think, just started recently. He has realigned the Office of Community-Oriented Policing and Traffic to Office of Community-Oriented Policing. He has also made some modifications regarding training. He sent two officers off to get additional education and accreditation from the Police Academy. The training has been modified to comply with body cameras, citizen compliance of force, and he is working on a five-year strategic plan, 30 new hires in the June 2020 class, anticipating another 30 more hires in September of 2020. Property crimes are trending down. Violent crimes are trending up. Aggravated assaults, particularly since the COVID-19 experience, has trended up a little bit, but he wanted to emphasize the City is a very, very safe place for us to live. Capital Improvements, the West Ashley Forensic Center, which will consist of 22,000 square feet, should be completed on time in early 2021. The other areas of concern are, and the Mayor mentioned this earlier in part of our Ways and Means Committee Report, the former Municipal Courtroom on Lockwood Boulevard has been converted to a state of the art training facility. We’ve got some other critical needs to address, including facilities of our police fleet, our radio division at Milford, and the headquarters that we have right now. So, those are things that we need to be looking at in the near future. He did mention other issues about a joint fire and police training facility regarding the Rescue Task Force. So, overall, both of our Chiefs are working hand-in-hand on a lot of the issues that we’re dealing with that are facing our community. No action is required, and no action was taken. That’s just for information purposes.” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Thank you, and might I, I think many of you all know, and maybe saw pictures of the Fire Department that responded so promptly and admirably to put out fires on Percy Street just this afternoon. There was quite a blaze going on there. They were on the scene within two minutes of getting the call and just did a terrific job. I think both Chief Reynolds and Chief Curia are on the line if anybody has any questions for either of them or of the Chairman. Is there anybody?” No one asked to speak. Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Alright. Well, thank you for that report. Again, no action required by Council on that one. Next up is Committee on Public Works, Councilmember Waring.” Councilmember Waring said, “Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Obviously, we met yesterday, we all know that drainage is a huge problem for the City of Charleston, a huge concern really for all of us, but we’re getting many victories. We need to pay attention to those victories, and those victories kind of happen across the City. We had the update of the Church Creek Basin, and I’m going to ask Mr. Fountain to touch on the specifics or Cliffs Notes version summarizing those a.(i), (ii), and (iii). Mr. Fountain.” Matt Fountain, Director, Stormwater, said, “Yes, absolutely, Councilmember Waring. Thank you. So, very briefly, I think we talked about with the Church Creek Buy-Out Property Update that, at this point, we’ve acquired 39 properties that have been returned to grass lots within the basin. We have one additional property currently in real estate closing, two more that have been approved by Council, but we are waiting for owner agreements to move to closing, and then we have one that was recently approved by Council at this last meeting for acceptance of the grant, and then we’ll move into the process. We have one more property coming to Council for acceptance on a grant that we received notice we were awarded at the next Council meeting. That’s about a total of $9 million of property acquisition and demolition that’s occurred in the basin and has returned a pretty good amount of area to natural grass to help combat the flooding. That also ties into our plans in Church Creek in general, which were tied into our National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) approach that we adopted after the Dutch Dialogues discussion to  City Council April 28, 2020 Page 17 look at doing some natural system floodplain and wetland enhancements on the basin to supplement some of the long-term, large scale, infrastructure projects that have been identified out there which is actually Item (ii). We are planning to go out with a solicitation asking for qualifications from design firms, consulting firms, converting the buy-out properties into multi-use properties where we’re basically enhancing how much drainage benefit we’re getting, versus just a grass field where there can be detention features, urban forests, other naturalized wetlands systems, other approaches. We’re looking to put that out and have a firm on board this summer. That will also let us run that project, which has a lot of outreach component, directly into the other National Fish and Wildlife Foundation grant that we were notified that we will be receiving about a month ago, which was the almost $1.4 million grant award for doing that same type of project, but on a much larger scale on large scale parcels in the area. So, we will continue into acquiring some of those properties and working through that design work in the fall and early next year. So, that’s sort of the work expected for the next three years within that basin as we move into construction on those projects, as well. That ties us directly into Item (ii), which is also related to Church Creek and Item (ii) is, we’ve talked about briefly, at Council recently, the work we’ve been doing in collaboration with Charleston County for adding drainage capacity under Glenn McConnell to, as the County gets into the widening of that road, basically restore the pre-existing connection from Lake Dotterer down through Long Branch Creek and out to the south. This is one of the outfalls that the Church Creek Basin originally had. It would provide some significant benefits to the Church Creek Basin, as well as to the basin of Lake Dotterer which has some flooding, as well. There is a balance that we have to hit as we add capacity there that we can’t overwhelm Long Branch Creek, which also has some flood considerations from constrictions that occur in Long Branch Creek. Item (ii) was a discussion where we went over NOAA, an organization in Charleston that’s had plans looking at Long Branch Creek and doing some capacity improvements and natural system improvements in that area for quite some time. They’ve asked us to partner with them on another National Fish and Wildlife Foundation grant to look at basically making those improvements to Long Branch Creek. So, we had the discussion that that’s our next likely application for grant funding on that system. NOAA is one of the actual funding agencies for NFWF as well, so they have a really good understanding of the program and, certainly, the City has had good success with that funding. The grant agencies generally like to see sort of sequential projects that build upon each other and really kind of convert the whole area. So, this is really a nice opportunity for us to, again, leverage another agency, as well as leveraging the County of Charleston who is a great partner on this project and leveraging existing projects that we’re doing, plus this Dutch Dialogues approach kind of renaturalizing and building resiliency for flood relief projects.” Councilmember Waring said, “Mr. Fountain, can you touch on how some of these aspects of the Weston & Sampson study is now beginning to kind of, may be--?” Mr. Fountain said, “Yes, absolutely. So, the Weston & Sampson study looked at sort of a few different options in the area. One of the approaches they took was sort of a traditional pump station approach. That’s still one of the things we’re looking at as sort of a long-term project in the basin but it’s, obviously, a much more expensive, much more complex, approach. So, what we’re trying to do is take some of their other recommendations, like the reconnection of Lake Dotterer pathway and, again, leverage some ongoing projects. The Glenn McConnell widening is a really good opportunity to say, ‘Okay, we have a project, the County has a project, we can build both of these projects at the same time, use each other’s resources, and get a lot more done for about the same amount of money.’ So, the Lake Dotterer work is one of the things that Weston  City Council April 28, 2020 Page 18 & Sampson had recommended, and we think that’s sort of one of these near term projects so we, obviously, still have a series of improvements we have to make, but we’re currently in the encroachment and permitting process with DOT on that project. We’ve been discussing with the County to incorporate into their design work, so there is a good kind of short-term pathway for some of these Weston & Sampson recommendations, in addition to some of the recommendations we looked at from the Dutch Dialogues of sort of renaturalizing and opening up the drainage storage again in the basin.” Councilmember Waring said, “Okay, good. Can you touch on the pump station down there at--” Mr. Fountain said, “Yes, absolutely. So, I don’t have as good of a segue into the pump station as I did between the first two, but the pump station is something that we’ve been talking about a little bit at the Public Works and Utilities Committee over the last few sessions. I just wanted to kind of highlight it in a little more detail, in that the Concord Street Pump Station actually services two major drainage projects, historical drainage projects, in the last 20 or 30 years of the City of Charleston. One of the first major drainage projects is Calhoun East which is an underground tunnel system that drains much of the kind of east side of the Peninsula on the Concord Street area, as well as the Market Street project that we basically added in another tunnel to drain, so that the Market Street basin then connected into that existing deep tunnel system and enhanced that pump station as that project went in. So, basically, we have a pump station that is about 20 years old. Most of the electrical system, mechanical pump systems, and the actual kind of functionality control systems of that pump station, and one of the issues we’ve had over the last year or so is it’s in a pretty harsh environment. It’s exposed to a lot of saltwater. It’s very humid, obviously, in Charleston and hard on electrical systems. It’s a beautiful pump station, but it’s a little bit aged. So, we’ve had sort of increasing incidents of maintenance issues and failures. We’ve had to go out and make repairs or make upgrades into the system. We have had some parts that are no longer supported by manufacturers. Luckily, we have a really wonderful independent firm that we work with on this station who sort of hand cobbled together many of the systems that we still have out there and really has a good understanding of what works and what doesn’t on the station. He’s done a great job helping us keep it running, but one of the things we’ve done over the last six months is to say, ‘Hey, this is becoming a real issue.’ So, we’ve developed, really, a 20-year capital, an O and M plan, for the pump stations in order to say, ‘Here’s what we need to be spending on an annual basis’, so we can analyze this out and budget into our budgets. But on the short run, of course, we haven’t been doing that, so we don’t have it set up with that approach. So, what we’re looking to do is probably raise some awareness to the Committee and then see if there are any questions regarding this, that we would likely need to look at using some of either our small project budget or some of our capital budget to jump start that approach to get some of the, again, deferred maintenance costs managed so that we can look into replacing the electrical systems, look into replacing these pumps, and look into replacing the computer systems before we have any more serious issues that we can address.” Councilmember Waring said, “Now, that’s the pump system that, prior to that system being put in, and the Mayor pointed this out so well yesterday, that those of us who are old enough remember prior to that system, East Bay and Calhoun used to flood literally by the number of feet, not by inches, and so did Meeting and Calhoun. That’s the pump station that Mr. Fountain just spoke about being about 20 years, or I don’t know how many years, overdue now for maintenance, but if we don’t get those things fixed, then we will go back to what was. So, thank you on that, Mr. Fountain. We bring these projects up so all 12 Councilmembers can begin to  City Council April 28, 2020 Page 19 think, not begin, you already are engaged on projects and on needs in your own districts. We’ve made this request before, the smaller projects list. I don’t know if Mr. Fountain has heard from all 12 Councilmembers on projects that they would like to see come forward in their respective districts, but the floor is certainly opened up. They can certainly call Mr. Fountain and let them know if there is a project or two in your area that you would like to get on that list. Councilmember Griffin and Councilmember Appel have been very good and very engaged on this process on this Stormwater Committee, and I can tell you it is definitely, and obviously, the Mayor, it’s a team approach pushing forward because these drainage problems that we have are going to take a collective. It’s not just one or two people pushing. It has to be 13 and along with all staff and everything. Now, we had a report from Mr. Wilbert on the seawall. Mr. Wilbert, can you give a cliff notes version of what you summarized for us yesterday?” Mark Wilbert, Chief Resilience Officer, said, “Yes, Mr. Chairman, I will be happy to do that. So, just in general, on April 20th the Army Corps put out the tentative selective plan for a 60-day comment period, which is why we’re hearing so many comments from the public about the opportunity to perhaps speak longer. This is the time where the Army Corps is seeking the comments from the public which will become part of the record in their report. From a City perspective, this is one of the threats that the City faces. This particular solution, which is primarily a flood wall solution with a wave attenuation system, is really designed to protect the City from storm surge. As we all know, storm surge is probably the most deadly, the most costly threat that we face, but it’s just one of the many threats that we face. Now is the time for the public to engage. We want to encourage the public to engage. We’ve put a link on our website, and we’ve also encouraged people to go to the Army Corps website and read the report, look through the storyboard that I presented yesterday, which I won’t go through today, that takes you through the project. Look at the benefits, look at the costs, and look at what they’re proposing. The Army is very interested in your comments. Obviously, the City is very interested, and we in the City will continue to engage with the Army over the next 18 months until we get to a final report, which will be sometime in May of 2021. So, this is just the beginning. One last point, up to this point we were really determining if the Army felt we had a project. By the release of the tentative selective plan, they determined and feel that we have a project that meets Federal interests, and the cost benefit ratio is favorable that we would be able to be competitive. Therefore, that’s why we’re going to continue to go forward, and now is the time for public comment to unveil the project that everybody’s been working on.” Councilmember Waring said, “Mr. Wilbert, can you touch on how you can get to the website and take a look at what you presented, as well as find links to ongoing drainage projects across the City of Charleston?” Mr. Wilbert said, “Sure. I certainly can, Mr. Chairman. So, the easiest way would be to just google US Army Corps of Engineers Charleston District and right up on the front page you will see the Charleston Peninsula Flood Project. If you click on that, it will take you to the project. There is a link there for not just a really good video of the Commander over there explaining the project, but also another link that will take you to the storyboard which really walks you through the project. It takes a couple of times to get through it to learn how to work it. There are a lot of ways that you can even expand what the storyboard shows you on the first page, and I would encourage as many people as possible to go to that. So, use those tools. They’ve really gone and put a lot of effort in to try and educate the public in this time of not being able to have public meetings. The second thing you mentioned is on our website, the City’s website, under both the Stormwater Department and the Resilience Department. In our sea level rise strategy, there is a link to all of the City projects ongoing on the drainage projects, all of the work that Mr. Fountain’s been doing, and his team’s been doing for quite some time. It covers the entire City, and it’s really  City Council April 28, 2020 Page 20 interesting. I think people will find it interesting to go on there and just see how much work is really going on in the City. It covers the entire City, and we put that together about a year ago. It was a collaborative effort with, certainly the Stormwater Department, our GIS Department, and Ms. McKain from our department that put that together. It was just a great effort, so that the citizens can see the amount of work that’s really going on. It’s pretty impressive to take a look at.” Councilmember Waring said, “Thank you for sharing that because we need to push that information out to the public so they can see. There are a lot of things going on. There is a wonderful momentum that came out of that Dutch Dialogues, and that momentum is continuing, so we want the people to, want us to tap in, as well as the people we represent. Mr. Mayor, that’s pretty much the extent of my report. Do you have any input? Again, thank you for reaching out to the Corps of Engineers because that was part of the discussion, as well as getting longer than 60 days to the comment period. That’s a wonderful solution you all came up with. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Thank you, and I will pick up on that suggestion from a little while ago and schedule for us to have a workshop meeting just on this Corps of Engineers presentation so we can go through it from A to Z even though many comments may still be forthcoming, but I think that would be a great exercise for us to engage in.” Councilmember Waring said, “Yes, sir.” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “So, another Committee with lots going on, a lot to report, but no action again required by Council. So, we’ll keep moving on to the Committee on Ways and Means, Councilmember Gregorie.” Councilmember Shahid said, “Move for approval.” Councilmember Gregorie said, “Second. It’s been properly moved and seconded, Mayor.” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Is there any discussion?” No one asked to speak. On a motion of Councilmember Shahid, seconded by Councilmember Gregorie, City Council voted unanimously to adopt the Committee on Ways and Means Report as presented: (Bids and Purchases (Office of Cultural Affairs: Approval to apply for a grant in the amount of $10,000 from SC Arts Commission for a sub-granting program (July 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021). This is the renewal of an annual award to fund the Lowcountry Quarterly Arts Program administered by the Office of Cultural Affairs. A 1:1 match is required. Matching funds will come from FY20 Community Assistance and private donations. (Office of Cultural Affairs: Approval to apply for a grant in the amount of $2,500 from South Arts to support fees for visiting artists for Free Verse Festival in October 2020. A 1:1 match is required. Matching funds will come from private donations. (Office of Cultural Affairs: Approval to apply for a grant in the amount of $50,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts to support funding to offset venue costs and artist fees in conjunction with the CARES Act. The grants.gov application portal will not open until late April, but the deadline precedes the first Ways and Means meeting  City Council April 28, 2020 Page 21 in May. The draft application will be shared at the April 28th meeting. No match is required. (Parks-Capital Projects: Approval of Stoney Field Improvements increase to P162427 for LED lighting improvements with National Energy Solutions in the amount of $3,532.99 for the remittance of state use tax on materials provided by the contractor. The contractor applied 7% sales tax on materials and an additional 2% is required to be remitted to the State. Approval to increase P162427 will increase the PO amount by $3,532.99 (from $304,083.12 to $307,616.11) Funding for this project is the 2005 GO Bond ($399,048), 2018 GO Bond ($2,600,000), Hospitality Funds ($1,250,000), and a Capital Contribution ($19,432.50). (Parks-Capital Projects: Approval of the Ashley River Pedestrian Bridge Professional Services Contract with HDR Engineering Inc. of Charleston in the amount of $49,946 for project management and coordination, jurisdiction determination of critical areas and wood stork survey, and other surveying services as part of the design and construction of a bicycle and pedestrian bridge crossing the Ashley River. Approval of this contract will be covered by a future budget amendment using 2017 General Fund Reserves. (Housing and Community Development: Mayor and City Council approval is requested for a Substantial Amendment to the 2020 Consolidated Plan and 2020-2021 Annual Action Plan. The purpose for the amendment is to include additional funding support for low and moderate income persons due to COVID-19. Funds are awarded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) ($488,628) and Housing Opportunities for persons with AIDS (HOPWA) ($118,886) programs. City of Charleston will release a request for application to local nonprofit organizations to expend the funds upon receipt and execution of a Grant Agreement with the Department of HUD. (Budget Finance and Revenue Collections: An ordinance to provide for the issuance and sale of not exceeding $6,000,000 General Obligation Bonds of 2020 of the City of Charleston, South Carolina, to prescribe the purposes for which the proceeds of the bonds shall be expended, to provide for the payment thereof, and other matters relating thereto. (Budget Finance and Revenue Collections: An ordinance to provide for the issuance and sale of not exceeding $11,800,000 General Obligation Refunding Bonds of 2020 of the City of Charleston, South Carolina, to prescribe the purposes for which the proceeds of the bonds shall be expended, to provide for the payment thereof, and other matters relating thereto. (Parks-Capital Projects: Approval of Change Order #13 with NBM Construction Company, Inc. in the amount of $0.00 and modifies the contract by: adding 5 weather days for a new substantial completion date of 12/26/19, if NBM achieves substantial completion by June 5, 2020, all liquidated damages are waived, however, if this date is not achieved the City is entitled to recover all liquidated damages, the City reserves the right to issue joint checks to contractor and subs/vendors/supplies or design professionals. Approval of Change Order #13 will increase the Construction Contract by $0.00. The funding sources for this project are the Installment Purchase Revenue Bond ($7,989,524), Proceeds from Sale of Real Estate ($1,135,607.64), Surplus Sales ($1,130.02) and Hospitality Funds ($380,000). (Approval of Amendment #1 to the Management Agreement for 22 West Edge with the Charleston Digital Corridor Foundation allowing for an increase in the approved tenant upfit amount. Approval of the amendment would allow for an additional $105,000 in tenant upfit improvements. Additional cost is offset by savings in design, FFE and lease expenses making it budget neutral.  City Council April 28, 2020 Page 22 First reading was given to the following ordinances: An ordinance to provide for the issuance and sale of not exceeding $6,000,000 General Obligation Bonds of 2020 of the City of Charleston, South Carolina, to prescribe the purposes for which the proceeds of the bonds shall be expended, to provide for the payment thereof, and other matters relating thereto. An ordinance to provide for the issuance and sale of not exceeding $11,800,000 General Obligation Refunding Bonds of 2020 of the City of Charleston, South Carolina, to prescribe the purposes for which the proceeds of the bonds shall be expended, to provide for the payment thereof, and other matters relating thereto. Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Next, we have three matters up for second reading.” Councilmember Mitchell said, “Move for approval.” Councilmember Waring said, “Second.” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Is that for all three items?” Councilmember Mitchell said, “All three.” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “All three items.” Councilmember Waring said, “I second that, Mayor.” The Clerk said, “Yes, I have it.” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Alright, and do we have any discussion on any of those matters? They were pretty ordinary kind of things.” No one asked to speak. On a motion of Councilmember Mitchell, three (3) bills (Items L-1 through L-3) received second reading. They passed second reading on motion by Councilmember Waring and third reading on motion of Councilmember Seekings. On further motion of Councilmember Mitchell, the rules were suspended, and the bills were immediately ratified as: 2020-053 AN ORDINANCE TO AMEND THE CODE OF THE CITY OF CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA, CHAPTER 31, SECTION 31-77(A) AND 31-77(B) TO CLARIFY AND TO EXPAND THE OPTIONS FOR REQUIRED DOCUMENTATION NECESSARY TO RECEIVE A CHAUFFER’S LICENSE TO OPERATE A TAXI CAB OR LIMOUSINE IN THE CITY OF CHARLESTON. 2020-054 AN ORDINANCE AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO EXECUTE ON BEHALF OF THE CITY OF CHARLESTON (“CITY”) AN AGREEMENT OF PURCHASE AND SALE, IN WHICH THE CITY AGREES TO SELL TO PETER LEWIS BUCK THE PROPERTY LOCATED AT 87 COOPER STREET (CHARLESTON COUNTY TMS NO. 459-05-04-122) (PENINSULA) (DISTRICT 4) FOR $201,834.00, SUBJECT TO THE CITY OF CHARLESTON SINGLE-FAMILY AFFORDABLE  City Council April 28, 2020 Page 23 HOUSING RESTRICTIVE COVENANTS, WITH AN AFFORDABILITY PERIOD OF NINETY (90) YEARS. 2020-055 AN ORDINANCE AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO EXECUTE ON BEHALF OF THE CITY OF CHARLESTON (“CITY”) ANY AND ALL DOCUMENTS NECESSARY TO QUITCLAIM GRANTS COURT (PENINSULA) (DISTRICT 3) TO MANX HOLDINGS, LLC, IN EXCHANGE FOR AN EASEMENT PERMITTING ACCESS OVER A PORTION OF GRANTS COURT FROM NUNAN STREET TO 4 GRANTS COURT (CHARLESTON COUNTY TMS NO. 460-07-02-222) (PENINSULA) (DISTRICT 3) AND 4 NUNAN STREET (CHARLESTON COUNTY TMS NO. 460-07-02-221) (PENINSULA) (DISTRICT 3), UPON APPROVAL OF ANY SUCH DOCUMENTS BY CORPORATION COUNSEL. Mayor Tecklenburg said, “So, next we have bills up for first reading. First is an ordinance to amend our Design Review Board oversight of affordable housing developments. Let me share that this was brought forward in order to keep some affordable housing projects moving along during the Coronavirus era that we’re now living in. Unfortunately, due to some technical reasons, we haven’t been able to schedule a DRB and BAR meeting yet. We’re still working on that public input part. I hope to have that worked out soon, but we still haven’t done that. But, it’s come to my attention today that this matter really didn’t have substantive conversation with some of the DRB members which would have been a very wise thing to do. In addition to that, the format of it it turns out, I’ll admit, isn’t quite what we need really to make something effective without having to go to the Planning Commission and back we need to pass it as an emergency ordinance. So, I still think the concept is good, but I’m going to ask Council if we could defer this matter this evening and bring to you on Thursday a slightly different emergency ordinance after having some conversations with our DRB members.” Councilmember Shahid said, “So moved.” Councilmember Brady said, “Second.” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “So, we have a motion to defer and a second. Is there any discussion?” Mayor Tecklenburg recognized Councilwoman Jackson. Councilwoman Jackson said, “Yes, I really appreciate the fact that you have the determination that you did today, so I do think that the approach you’re giving us now is the right one. So, I look forward to supporting it as the emergency change that we know we do need.” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Thank you very much. Is there any further discussion?” No one else asked to speak. On a motion of Councilmember Shahid, seconded by Councilmember Brady, City Council voted unanimously to defer the following bill: An ordinance to amend Chapter 54 of the Code of the City of Charleston (Zoning Ordinance) by amending Design Review District Section 54-268.c to allow affordable housing developments to be approved by the Administrative Officer. (DEFERRED)  City Council April 28, 2020 Page 24 Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Thank you very much. Then, there is one matter. This is regarding height in certain zoning or certain districts. Mr. Lindsey, do you want to comment on what this ordinance is doing?” Mr. Lindsey said, “Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Recently, we passed a change in terms of the base flood elevations, and what this does is it grants to property owners, who happen to be in zoning districts that are affected by that change, the additional height so that they are not penalized. So, for example, if you were in a base flood elevation that has to go up two feet, this grants the additional two feet to those locations, and it equalizes out the changes that we have recently made to our flood elevations. It’s simply an ordinance that--” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “We lost you there.” Mr. Lindsey said, “We do not penalize--” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Jacob, I’m afraid your internet connection was not good there. We lost you.” Mr. Lindsey said, “Okay. Let’s try again. Can you hear me, Mr. Mayor?” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Yes.” The Clerk said, “Yes. We can hear you.” Mr. Lindsey said, “Okay. So, recently we adopted a change of freeboard requirements as you all know--” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Mr. Lindsey, I think we got the picture that we’re adjusting for elevation giving a little extra height where it’s needed where we’re elevating that one or two feet as had been passed by Council. Can I entertain a motion?” Councilmember Shealy said, “Move for approval.” Councilwoman Jackson said, “Second.” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “We have a motion to approve and a second. Is there any discussion?” No one asked to speak. On a motion of Councilmember Shealy, seconded by Councilwoman Jackson, City Council voted unanimously to give first reading the following bill: An ordinance to amend provisions of Chapter 54 of the Code of the City of Charleston (Zoning Ordinance) to amend Section 54-505(c) pertaining to the exception for maximum allowed height for properties located in a special flood hazard area within the Conservation, RR-1, SR-1, SR-2, SR-6, SR-7 and STR zoning districts. Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Would you all mind if we stepped back on just one matter? I’m putting Ms. Johnson on the spot here. We passed, in Ways and Means, the budget for some of those extra CDBG funds, and the question didn’t come up, but Ms. Geona Johnson and Chris  City Council April 28, 2020 Page 25 Jardin have really been working hard on a plan to help those who are experiencing homelessness and those who may risk becoming homeless. I thought if we could just belabor a couple more moments, Geona if you could give us a little update on that plan, even though we have already approved the budget for it?” Mrs. Geona Shaw Johnson, Director, Housing and Community Development, said, “Mayor, certainly, thank you for the opportunity to share about this funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. It comes both under our Community Development Block Grant Program, as well as our Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS Program. One component, as was detailed in the documents we sent to you and Council, was assistance for persons experiencing homelessness. Currently, that amount, which is a little over $332,000, would literally assist people who are homeless with both temporary and permanent lodging which could be hotel rooms, but we are working hard to do more permanent housing which means rental, in most cases, for these individuals. That funding could also be used for transportation and other related expenses. We are working with One80 Place in this regard, Origin South Carolina, and then the Navigation Center to get persons who are facing these challenges in housing. The other component of this is for homelessness for veterans. There are those who are currently in apartments. They are struggling to stay in those apartments. So, we are providing a little over $132,000 to help those persons who are encountering those challenges because of the pandemic because they’ve been furloughed for a number of different reasons. Since we’ve secured the approval from you all, I sent an e-mail to HUD this afternoon asking when we would see a grant agreement from them. The goal is once you have signed that grant agreement, we would do a request for applications from our local housing providers who are in this industry, if you will, to help us get this money on the street and get it in the hands of those individuals who need it the most. We’re also having conversations with Trident United Way, Amanda Lawrence and Mike Gibbons, so that we partner with them to help leverage these funds against other dollars that are on the street, if you will, so that we can maximize the number of people that we’re able to assist.” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Great. Thank you very much, and thank you for your hard work.” Ms. Shaw Johnson said, “You are so welcome.” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Are there any questions for Ms. Johnson about that?” Mayor Tecklenburg recognized Councilmember Shahid. Councilmember Shahid said, “I just want to say thank you for your work on all of that, and I may have mentioned this earlier, that a woman walked in my office one day just off the street looking for assistance. It’s the simple things that they are looking for that they need that we take for granted. So, when things like this pop up, they are so severely impacted on needs that they have. So, Geona, thank you for what you’re doing with all of that, and we need to be mindful of how these kind of catastrophic events affect those who are most in need of our assistance. So, thank you for your work.” Ms. Shaw Johnson said, “Absolutely. Thank you all for your support.” Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Great. Is there anything else to come before Council this evening?”  City Council April 28, 2020 Page 26 No one else asked to speak. Mayor Tecklenburg said, “Alright. Hearing none, we will have an Emergency Meeting Thursday at 5:30 p.m. Our next Regular Meeting will be Tuesday, May 12th at 5:00 p.m. We stand adjourned. Thank you all very much.” There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 6:41 p.m. Vanessa Turner Maybank Clerk of Council